MIDLAND RAILWAY AWARD.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9301, 31 December 1895, Page 4

MIDLAND RAILWAY AWARD.

The award of the umpire in the Midland Bailway arbitration is satisfactory to the taxpayers, as it must be to the Government, in one important respect, inasmuch as they are not called upon to pay the heavy claim preferred by the Company for damages, or, indeed, any part of it. The Hon. E. Bjcake, who brought to the work great legal acumen and the most business-like qualities of decision and despatch, has evidently gone carefully into the evidence and arguments laid before him, and has decided that the Company has no legal claim against the Government. As to the moral rights of the case, he has refrained from expressing any opinion whatever,

and no doubt very properly so, sinco the Arbitration Court was set up, g o * to sit in judgment on the political actions of the Government or to criti cisc the ethical aspects of tho case bat merely to decide tho legal issues submitted in the order of reference These, as we have stated, have been given entirely in favour of the Government. If the taxpayers have not a heavy claim for damages to defray, however, they have a fai , from inconsiderable bill of costs io j Ueo j. and the fact that tho umpire, while deciding all the legal issuos in favour of the Government, yet ordered thorn to pay their own costs, indicated, it is fait to assume, that he was far from considoring the merits of the caso lay entirely on the side of the Crown. The arbitration having thus termi. nated, the country will" await with much interest the next step in the history of the railway. Tho seizure of tho lino by the Government havin* been held by tho umpire to be justified, we presume that it will in due timo become the property of the colony. It li £a been agreed that the umpire should exercise the powers of a Judge of the Supreme Court, as provided in the clauses in the Railways Construction and Land Act, under which the seizure Avas made. Those clauses empower the Government to assume tho management of the lino and complete it if they think fit. If the Company, for the space of one year after the Government has taken possession shall fail to repay all sums of public money which have been expended towards completing the line, and in its management, in excess of the receipts therefrom, tho Government may give three months' notice that they intend to retain the railway as Government property, and failing a satisfactory arrangement by the Company in the meantime, tho line, by the mere publication of an Order-in-Council, will become vested in th« Crown. As, however, under tho East and West Coast Railway Act, it ig expressly provided that debentures are to be a first charge on the "onfciro assets of the Company, including the railway and everything pertaining thereto," it would seom that the Crown, in taking possession of th« railway, would take it subject to the claims of the debenture holders. That, however, is a matter for the lawyer? yet to settle. Although it is only human nature for the public of New Zealand to be glad that it is relieved from tho necessity of paying damages to the Company, there will we are sure be a general feeling of sympathy with the latter, soeing that it ha 3 lost all ifcg capital in. attempting to carry out an undertaking which tho colony was very anxious to see. completed. There will also be an uneasy feeling in the minds of most people that although the Company itself may not have been free from blame, ifc has not been very woll treated by the present Government. The latter, it is now shown, acted within the strict letter of the law, but - no one who. has studied the history of the case impartially will deny that the Company met with somewhat rigid treatment, instead of the sympathy and co-oporation which it might reasonably have ex pected in such a work. Nor do we think the position of the colony is a particularly enviable one at the prosent time. We have parted with a good deal of our public estate, we have a heavy bill of costs to pay, and we seem likely to get complete possession of some bits of railway on which it is impossible to pay expenses, and upon which it appears we shall have claims, of debenture-holders amounting to some £800,000 to settle. The Midland Railway is almost as far off completion as ever, and even if completed, according to the contention of the Government in the late arbitration it can never be anything but a losing investment. It will conic to the front once more in Parliament, however, aad be as great a disturbing influence in our politics as ever it was. If the Government and their apologists see anything to rejoice at in the present position and future prospects of this unfortunate undertaking, it only shows how greatly lacking they are in the most ordinary qualities of foresight and prudence.